


Breaking Expectations

by 13thSyndicate



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You, Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Gen, Joshua is a Power, Nita meets all the interesting people, Talking to powers, post-GWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 03:05:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10710852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13thSyndicate/pseuds/13thSyndicate
Summary: Nita really should know better than to have expectations at this point.





	Breaking Expectations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lazchan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lazchan/gifts).



There were a lot of ways in which the Powers presented themselves when dealing with mortals. Nita Callahan, being a wizard who traveled the High Road quite often, and one who found herself in a great number of very strange and unusual edge-cases even for a wizard, thought she’d seen enough of them that no method in which one presented Itself would surprise her anymore. She was under consideration for Planetary status; she’d received prophecies and ear-nips from one in the body of a scarlet macaw; she’d watched a friend’s dog ascend to the position of Avatar of the One for His entire species. She’d watched oen, masquerading as a short-tempered Irish woman, give Her life in exchange for one last act of creation, and she’d watched on be born to right a wrong so ancient it barely had names.

She’d not, however, expected _this_ one.

For one thing, he was… s _hort._ It had been a while since Nita could look _down_ at most boys she had the opportunity of working with; Kit was just getting so tall these days, after all, and of course Ronan and Roshaun were both giants, also. She was getting used to being towered over by her casual acquaintances, let alone beings of higher magnitudes of existence, and yet this one was smirking _up_ at her with violet eyes which held an expression like thy consistently knew things others did not. It was odd, to Nita, to see a Power with that sort of sense of humor, too, or at least one that was written so clearly on Its face. The only Power she’d met with that expression was… well. She wouldn’t be meeting _That_ particular Being in a little café in one of Tokyo’s busiest districts over cocoa and some of the best pancakes she’d ever eaten. Not entirely willingly, anyway.

It had been a very, very long story that found her sitting in an out-of-the-way café with a violet-eyed Power embodied as a short, snarky teenager. What had started as a spellswap exhibition in Tokyo’s Minato ward had ended with a mysterious request via the manual to meet up with a specialist in Shibuya regarding one of Japan’s oldest and most eccentric pseudo-wizardly practices.

Her manual described it, very simply, with its title in its own native language, rendered into both normal Japanese characters and the phonetic ‘romaji’ transliteration, and translated into both English and the Speech – the Reapers’ Game. Apparently, it was a long-running gamble by a group of lesser Powers, a method of heightening humans’ commitment to Life and filtering that energy through the cultural stewpot that was Shibuya’s shopping district, increasing energy conservation among humans and fighting the Lone One one day at a time by encouraging individuality and self-expression. Most of the details were either very sketchily outlined, highly classified, or both, or in some way quite over Nita’s head, but the concept seemed to be that those young people in Shibuya who were to die before their time were snatched up by some active spellcraft hard-coded into Shibuya’s mini-kernel, and then engaged in a sort of cutthroat contest administered on a more senior level of reality. In charge of this were beings called Reapers , imbued with special authority by the master of Shibuya , a minor Power granted merely the title of “Composer.”

The short, violet-eyed form of that very Composer let out a chuckle, leaning back in his seat and directing a brief glance towards Nita’s unusual companion before returning his full attention to Nita.

“Not what you were expecting?” he asked, in a voice that she shouldn’t have been surprised was oddly melodious – _He is the Composer, after all_ – but which was also smug, secure in the knowledge he’d potentially gotten one over on her. She had to control both the embarrassed flush – _come on, Nita, you knew Powers have no restriction on physical form_ – and the automatic eye twitch that seemed ready to rise unbidden. “Well, no matter,” he continued, dismissing everything with a wave of his hand. “I understand you’re here to check up on the state of my fine little city. Well, feel free to look around; Shibuya is more than ready for inspection.” He leaned forward, elbows propped on the table, a twinkle in his eyes that was chased by a flicker of something else, something _old_ , that swam through their depths – Something amused, Something serious and curious, and dare she suggest, _playful-_

“Thank you, Elder Cousin,” she said, respectfully, despite his grin.

“Oh, no need for formalities,” he said with another wave. “A friend of Neku dearest is a friend of mine, and it’s not as though my identity is exactly _known_ by too many people. Call me Joshua, if you would… the name has a certain primacy over my status, anyway.”

She watched him, curiously, but all he did was smirk.

“Of course, Joshua,” she said, though the name felt odd, tripping off her tongue. It both did and didn’t fit. Far beyond simple concerns of nationality, the name had connotations… connotations which seemed to drape and ooze around the young Power like a second skin but which also seemed affected, put on like so much else of him.

Eyes met across the table. A flash of violet. A ripple. A sudden, intense curiosity, and the feeling of drowning in it, and masks upon masks upon masks. Layers. A fundamental patience that was at odds with a fundamental temper- contingencies within folds within plots, ready to conceal the nature of the game even from oneself if one must. An escape plan. The infinite loop and arrow-

“We’ve more in common than I realized, don’t we?” asked a voice that seemed to resonate with the sounds of traffic, streetlight, a million voices calling out to each other and a drumbeat like a heartbeat, and at the center of it all, a single, human voice, _cocooned_ in the city itself-

She blinked. The moment was over. She was being stared at, but also somewhat dazed. The visionary talent was always a moody thing, but she’d never felt anything quite like _that_ before. As though she’d been woven up in a web of webs…

“I’d ask why you’re here,” Joshua was saying out loud, as if nothing had happened, “but it seems like you’re not entirely sure yourself, from what Neku told me. Well, feel free to play tourist for a while; Shibuya, as I said before, ha s nothing to hide.” _Anymore,_ Nita realized. _Something happened here in the recent past. But whose definition of recent?_ “If something is wrong, you’ll stumble across it sooner or later. The Game starts up in the next few days or so. Some Wizards have no trouble seeing into the UG, but I’ll ask that you please don’t interfere with my work if you can help it. The souls who survive, well, most of them need to return to their _sevarfrith_ little lives, and outsiders seeing them scurry around tends to have a bad effect on the whole delicate balance of it all.” He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I’m still cleaning up from the debacle two years ago.”

“And whose fault was that?” were the words Nita could swear she heard mumbled from the seat next to her, but if Joshua heard them, he paid them no mind.

“No matter,” he said, with another of those waving gestures. “Anyway, my time here’s been fun, and it’s been _so_ interesting meeting you, Nita,” and for a moment that powerful gaze was on her again, “but I really have to go. I’m a busy man, after all. Games to run, people to meet, new subordinates to train. Whatever you’re here for, best of luck.”

He stood, pushed out of the seat, and left, throwing a flippant wave and an absent _“Dai!”_ over one shoulder as he left.

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhere, in the middle of the night, Kit wakes up in a cold sweat, thinking of Joshua and going, oh, thank every Power I can name that I didn't bring Carmela.


End file.
